every colour illuminates
by saltzmans
Summary: She writes stories in indigo ink of two girls who were thrown together in a world of death and deciet and broken kinds of love—ariaspencer.


**notes **| this is for elz because she makes me do stupid things like write weird pairings at midnight.

**warnings** | unlinear; unedited.

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red

Spencer Hastings is a little bit crazy. Aria picks up on that as soon as she gets back from Iceland because she's always had a knack of looking past the exterior mask and she can see that underneath the button-up shirts, perfect hair and cabinets of awards that at the end of the day mean absolutely nothing, Spencer Hastings is just as broken and battered and bruised as the rest of them. Even more, in a way because all Spencer wants to be is normal – the world, the family she has lived in for all her life have pushed her to be nothing less than flawless – and yet here she is, on a Sunday morning as the sun rises, burning a crimson path through the darkness, after a sleepless night of crying and kissing and holding on until the angry redness which seems to consume her every waking moment fades, wrapped in the arms of the girl she calls her best friend, every bit as fucked up as everyone else.

orange

Watching Spencer, through the ups and downs of the crazy world that Ali has left them marooned in, Aria sees her fall to bits, piece by perfect piece. And it's the kind of collapsing which makes Aria's heart burn because Spencer started off bright and full of prospects of universities and a future which meant something; which meant escape away from the twisted tunnel of secrets called Rosewood, but now she's crying in her kitchen holding a crumpled rejection letter and realizing that she's in far too deep to ever pull herself out. And as Aria watches her – her words, her feelings, her body – useless as any kind of help, she thinks that Spencer is a faded sort of orange now. The kind of orange which just screams helplessness like the way the sun succumbs to the night but Aria knows that it's a brokenness which can't be fixed so she marks kisses down Spencer's neck and writes poetry in black ink across pale skin because she knows that even though the sun has sunk beneath the horizon and the last of the orange is fading, soon the stars will come out.

yellow

Toby destroys Spencer. After she finds his body in the woods, but before she is carted off to Radley and the layers of secrets and backstabbing becomes deeper and more interwoven with deceit and lies, Aria finds Spencer at her front door, smeared in mud, her hair wild and her carefully pocketed insanity beginning to leak through the cracks in her porcelain. She's crying, and between the gulping sobs and great shakes which wrack her body, she tells Aria a story and it's more of a confession of a story, about a girl who thought she could be anything but really was just another marionette of some greater being dancing them through a life of closed doors and curtained windows and when she's finished Aria just smiles – a sad sort of smile – and kisses away the tears which taste salty and sorrowful against her lips and later as they lie curled on Aria's bed, a map of stars spread out before them, yellow beacons shining amongst the darkness, Aria promises that one day they'll pick a star and follow it out of Rosewood and somewhere where they can be free. And as Spencer falls asleep, her face stiff from tears, resting against Aria's arm, she's almost convinced that it's true.

green

One day they take to the woods for the day because Aria decides she's fed up with the nonsense they've gotten themselves wound up in and she just wants to be a teenager – just for a few hours – because they're not going to get a moment like this again. She appears at the stop of Spencer's drive weighed down by food and a tartan rugs and together they drive out of Rosewood. They pick a clearing in the dense lattice of trees, the edge of a blue sky poking in between the green leaves. They lie side by side, hands loosely wrapped around each other, tight enough that they wouldn't forget that the other was there. They listen to the Beatles and the Monkees and songs from their long passed childhoods and Spencer traces circles across Aria's stomach which create a contentedness that spreads through her body until Aria's dizzy and everything feels like it's spinning, spinning, spinning away. Eventually the dappled green light turns into moonlit shadows and as they drive home in silence, Aria can't help but think that even though their lives have been corrupted by a blackness which encases their hearts, maybe these beautiful green days help to ward it off for just a little bit longer.

blue

Aria's entirely never sure why but school's always played a ridiculously major part in her life and it's not even in terms of education but more to do with illicit affairs with English teachers and attempted murders by figures in black masks in the chemistry labs. And now she's got Spencer and all of sudden she's skipping class to hide in the janitors closet and kiss her amidst the mops and cleaning products; muffling the noise in the crooks of each other's neck; kissing until their lips are raw and their cheeks are flushed and there's an unstoppable kind of static dancing in the small space between them. And there's a kind of twisted pleasure in turning a good girl bad so Aria finds odd moments of joy in finding notes in her locker asking to meet in the changing rooms after school and spending an hour learning every mark on Spencer's face, pressed up against the cool tiles. It's evenings like that Aria remembers when she's alone and her walls are crumbling down; she remembers azure skies and crimson lips and harlequin skin. She remembers the blue days which seemed to stretch on forever; the days which kept her going.

indigo

Sometimes Aria falls apart. She lets go of the strings which have been holding each delicate segment of her together and all she can do is curl up into a ball and will away the tears which threaten to spill from her burning eyes. She scribbles poems and stories in indigo which shines under the electric light; acceptable stories where the handsome prince falls in love with the beautiful princess who's been trapped in her tower dreaming of happily ever afters. But in between the lines of uniformity and sense, Aria weaves different tales. Ones of two broken girls who were thrown together in a world of death and violence and deceit. She's writes about moonlit trysts and days which were green and endless and didn't matter at all. The indigo ink spills over onto the desk, in the margins of books until her her timelines is broken by the words and the story of two girls who clung together as the stormy seas tossed them to and fro but still didn't let go not even when there hands were icy and their hearts were cold and world seemed to want nothing more than to tear them apart.

violet

Acceptance is something that takes a while to appear. It creeps up on Aria the way a Spencer crept up on her; quickly and without a moment warning. One moment perfect Spencer Hastings who went a little bit crazy is just a distraction – a friend turned lover who liked to pretend she was bad by kissing in bathrooms and making false plans to follow a star and run away – but the next she's something more. All of a sudden Aria sees her as something more than a broken toy who she could pretend to fix; more than just something to help her forget about A and Ali and falling apart. Acceptance is violet because it's Spencer's favourite colour and the colour of sky as they sit on the roof of the Hastings garage at dawn, a duvet wrapped around them both, watching the sky turn from black to violet to pink. And it's all kinds of beautiful evaluate they've come so far and been through so much yet they still have each other and the whole of a violet morning sky so when Aria whispers "I love you" she means every single syllable.

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_please don't favourite without leaving a review._


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